Thread: Difficult moves

Hi all,

I've noticed that my brand-new students have no end of difficulty with snake arms and shoulder shimmies. I was wondering if anyone had any advice. They are doing well with everything else but something about these two movements really are confusing them.

Upper body stiffness and tightness maybe? I think snake arms is one of those things you can break down to one arm at a time,but shoulder shimmy can just sometimes take years to loosen up those muscles enough. I couldn't even find the shoulder shimmy muscles for the first several years (you know, the ones in the middle of the back that you're supposed to use, as opposed to the actual shoulders).

what is it about snake arms they are finding difficult?. I always remind them to lead up w/ the elbow....pretend they are standing between 2 panes of glass and to try and keep the arms in the space..... I do snake arms different ways, but mostly I get a rotation in my shoulder. as my arm comes up..the shoulder rotates forward and as my arm comes down it rotates back....I have my students practice alot of shoulder rolls and shoulder thrusts forward and back

Yeah, the main problem seems to be that they are having trouble lifting the elbow up first. They get kind of a chicken-wing thing going on. I've tried several different ways of explaining. I think it's probably (re the shoulder shimmies) something like that. Not being able to 'find' the muscles.

Start with shoulder rolls...nice and slow. Roll to the back starting at the forward and down position. Together first -then alternating. ( back peddle that bike!) relax and breath and then start thinking elbows to the ceiling. Relax into it..do it a bunch - while chanting in time to them - shoulder... elbow.....then when they are relaxed into it, add wrist, then hands. Keep the beat...1 2 3 4 by saying - shoulder, elbow, wrist and hands draw out the haaaannnnds for a more languid feel. Then chant "Hug a Big Beach Ball on way the up (showing the the curve)...paint the wall...on the way down. Focus on the lift arm by turning your face to it...let the down arm drift by itself...pay it no mind...let gravity take it from you. See how that works.

Shoulder shimmies must start with single articulated alternating shimmies untill the joint loosens independant of the blade and then you can begin to redirect the minds focus to the upper back and in between the shoulder blades. Ask them to tighten the upper abs to stabilize any twisting motion of the ribcage - if they can.

Like Nepenthe, I had darnedest time finding the shoulder shimmy muscles - then when I *did* find them, the one on the left was almost non-existant, I had to strengthen (and loosen) the whole affair.

Snake arms were the usual klutzy disaster for this clumsy male - it took me quite the time to get them down, but now I don't even have to think about them. The suggestions about one arm at a time are good!

The main thing about shoulder shimmies and arm movements, but for me less so is that cos these are new muscles, they will need to practice shaking at home every day for a few minutes to build them up.

If you want a way to stop arms moving with shoulders, try my party trick. Hold a fullish glass of water in each hand. Found thid out by accident - when carrying cup of tea upstairs whilst music was playing. Went up on autopilot, then realised at top of stairs that I had got it at last!!

hello
i pick up shoulder shimmies fairly quickly. this is what i was taught and it's so easy to understand -- ask your students to stand in front of mirror and then bend forward, so upper body and lower body make a right angle, with arms hanging down, and to look at themselves in the mirror (so head up). ask them to move their shoulders up and down with assistance of their arms if need be, but keep the arms straight but not locked. it's somehow very easy to move the shoulders in this position. then ask the students to continue this movement and remember the feeling and then slowly slowly come up and open the arms. and you get shoulder shimmies! when they get tangled up, just ask them to go down once again and start again.

i learnt this in a super beginners' class. i remember all of us could do it although of course uglyly. but once i understood i knew how to work on it.

i hope you understand what i described because it really works!

Originally Posted by BreaMorgiane

Hi all,

I've noticed that my brand-new students have no end of difficulty with snake arms and shoulder shimmies. I was wondering if anyone had any advice. They are doing well with everything else but something about these two movements really are confusing them.

What are they doing wrong?
Shaking their whole torso, instead of just their chest?
If so, have them sit down (to isolate the hips), have them get the 'feel' of the shimmies, then have them stand up, and try to remember not to move the hips.
I agree with the others, relaxing is very important.

Practicing in front of a mirror really helped me with my snake arms.

I will just add that snake arms are not taught as a "beginner" move in my classes, probably because we work a bit harder than painting the wall, but also because they are *not easy*. Not good ones. Shoulder shimmies are also hard for some people to get and can take months if not years. Wingaki's exercise is known to me and I know it works really well for some people (though I personally find it difficult probably because of The Boobs). Students need to know these are not moves you get overnight.

shoulder shimmy can just sometimes take years to loosen up those muscles enough.

6 years and counting here. Things have improved slightly in the last 6 months with a lot of support from my teacher, my yoga teacher and my acupuncturist. I'm just so stiff in there!

All of my above helpers and mentors tell me that they have been seeing a concerning increase in individuals who have a) incredibly stiff shoulders but b) also have very little muscle development in the lower trapezius and the serratus anterior muscles, so I suppose its possible that there is a general trend in this direction.

As for snake arms. To my mind they are not an easy move for beginners because they require a fair understanding of muscle groups and the skeleton as well as having 'got' the concept that steady and controlled is pretty much the way forward with all bellydance arms which in my experience is not something that comes in the early days when people are still struggling to wean themselves off the 'Saturday Night Fever' approach.

Kami Liddle was teaching snake arms at Raqs B and it soon emerged that for many class members the whole idea that your shoulder and elbow could rotate was a revelation. She had everyone feeling for the moment of rotation in their opposite arms to illustrate her point and there were quite a few stunned faces...

Its not likely to be super helpful to you but having done some archery training I've found that the elbow rotation thing is very similar to the way you turn your arm when you prepare to shoot (otherwise pain and bruising will occur in short order). If any of your students has any idea about this it could help you to illustrate the concept.

</ramble>

Lots of good stuff here. Just want to add a couple of thoughts into the mix. ..g.:

Shoulder shimmies - I start my beginners on this by having them "press a button" with only their shoulder (forward emphasis and alternating, of course). It's just a little movement forward (push in the button) and release, just to help them begin to identify the muscles that will be used for the whole movement. Initially they make this movement really big trying to use the whole upper torso. Once they get going with this then I tell them to make the movement small (helps them to disengage the upper torso and focus more on the appropriate muscles). Once they've found and are using the correct focus for the movement, then I have them work on doing the same exercise with a "back" focus. From there I advance them to the full movement. Granted there are still some who have a very difficult time establishing the shoulder shimmy for themselves.

Snake arms - The only thing I will add on this is to have them visualize themselves as moving through water. When you are floating in water and moving your arms and hands in a relaxed leisurely fashion, how do your arms move? Time to go play in the pool or lake! ..l;,

Thanks for the great responses! I've tried the 'you are in the water' for snake arms and having them sit on the floor for shoulder shimmies. Some of them got it, some of them are still struggling.

I am interested to note that some of you don't consider snake arms beginner. Perhaps I should rethink having them in the beginner class? They seemed to pick up hip movements quite easily, but the arms not so much. You are right, they are certainly still at the Saturday Night Fever stage (LOL, by the way). I might be putting the cart before the horse here.

Snake arms are tough for beginners. I think many of the sequential moves (like undulations) kind of fry beginners' brains, and I don't expect them to be able to do these moves wonderfully after a 6-week session. I do introduce these moves, though, and we work on them, but I tell them that these are really Advanced Beginner/Intermediate moves, and we're just trying them out so they can get used to them. This relaxes the brain panic enough that some of them actually get the moves.

There are some great ideas here for teaching shoulder shimmies. I've tried teaching them seated but not bent over. I'll try that in my classes in September. Bhuz is a great place for new ideas!!

I can sympathize with tight upper back problems. I apparently used to carry all my body tension there, and it drove Ibrahim Farrah crazy. (Now, that guy had some awesome shoulder moves... ) One day, the muscles just relaxed. What a relief!

Latifa

What helped me with snake arms, was practicing an elbow rotation, turning the elbow to point up, without the hand rolling with it. People often focus on the lifting and dropping of the shoulder, but if the elbow doesn't rotate up for the lift, it's hard to lead with it.
When I drill snake arms I think - elbow rotated up, shoulder up, then I'm at the top, shoulder down - elbow rotated back down. The hands seem to take care of themselves without much thought, but I did always like the analogy of standing in a wide doorway, painting the frame with your fingers.

Originally Posted by Kash13

What helped me with snake arms, was practicing an elbow rotation, turning the elbow to point up, without the hand rolling with it. People often focus on the lifting and dropping of the shoulder, but if the elbow doesn't rotate up for the lift, it's hard to lead with it.
When I drill snake arms I think - elbow rotated up, shoulder up, then I'm at the top, shoulder down - elbow rotated back down. The hands seem to take care of themselves without much thought, but I did always like the analogy of standing in a wide doorway, painting the frame with your fingers.

This. I teach this to my students and have them put their hand gently on the wall (fingertips touching the wall only) and rotate the elbow up making sure they keep good posture (no hunching over to rotate further). This stretches the rotator cuff and also trains the hand to stay in the same relative position while the arm moves.

I break snake arms down into 3 layers. The arm movement (elbows, then wrist, then fingers), then add a shoulder roll, then add the hand wave/flourish. They only learn the arms part in beginner, and learn to add the other layers in intermediate.

I use the analogy of painting and the hand is the paintbrush. You must pull the paintbrush up and down, not push it, or the bristles go all wonky. I'm going to have to stop using the Karate Kid analogy, as the students are mostly all too young to remember Miyagi-san. I also tell them that snake arms looks best when the amount of curve in the arm pointing up matches the amount of curve in the arm pointing down. For those who have a hard time curving the hands in when trying, I explain that they are standing in a large doorway and they are painting the woodwork

Originally Posted by khadiya

All of my above helpers and mentors tell me that they have been seeing a concerning increase in individuals who have a) incredibly stiff shoulders but b) also have very little muscle development in the lower trapezius and the serratus anterior muscles, so I suppose its possible that there is a general trend in this direction.

I'm ITA with this. I don't know if it's because a lot of my beginning students tend to be office workers who sit slumped over a keyboard all day or what, but it just seems like they have no horizontal range of motion in their shoulders. And when I can get them to bring the shoulder forward, instead of going up or twisting at the waist, I've had several say that they feel an uncomfortable-to-painful pulling sensation when they do so.

As for snake arms, I think bintbeled has hit the nail on the head that they are a complex move that needs the coordination of several different muscle groups. I teach the more horizontal "shoulders rolling back" snake arms (as opposed to the vertical "painting the walls" one), and it's a move that starts in your shoulders and travels all the way down your arms to the very tips of your fingers. For people who have poor body awareness, this appears to be a monumental task. Added to that, you do need arms and shoulder strength and flexibility to do them well, and a lot of people just don't have that walking into my class. Most of my beginner students are practically dying after the first 30 seconds of drilling snake arms. I tell them that I'm introducing the more to them and giving them the tools they need to work on them at home, but that no one learns decent snake arms only practicing once a week in class.

For snake arms, I get them in a circle with their right hand on the left shoulder of the person beside them. Then, they roll their right shoulder. I'll go around and try to make sure everyone is making the roll evenly and they aren't lifting their shoulders to their ears, etc. Then, imaging their hand still on their partner's shoulder, they take a couple steps back.

Repeat other side, then get them doing both alternately. Then, I'll go around and make sure everyone is keeping their hands relatively still. Not until they get the movement do we play with moving the hands around. I want it originating in the shoulder, muscular and controlled down to the fingertips.

For shoulder shimmies, I get them sitting cross legged on the floor with forearms resting on thighs. Then, we shoulder shimmy with the shoulders going back on the beat to avoid caving in the chest. Then we stand up, leave the arms loosey goosey and continue with the shoulder shimmy walking around rather goofy looking to some fun, constant music. Then we work on refining it, but not until I've got them all relaxed and having fun.

Both methods compliments of Hadia's teacher training and work VERY well.

Thanks, everyone! Now I'll have some new techniques to try in class!

I'm considering going to Hadia's teacher training; do you recommend it?

I haven't done it myself, but I do recommend Hadia as a teacher and, given her level of body awareness due to her other hat as physical therapist, I'd say her course would be well, well worth the money. If I were in a position to do it, I would. I *am* told that Hadia can be a little personally difficult at times these days, but she's still a very, very able person with very deep knowledge, and if she's happy I think anything you get from her is going to be very good.

She was very nice in her email to me, and said this is the last year she's going to be involved in dance. So I guess it's get it before it's gone at the moment.

What, really? No! Mind you, despite appearances she's not all that young any more and I guess she wants to pursue other passions as well. I sometimes wonder if the dance market is oversaturated, and dancers like Hadia who go back a ways and teach more ME-style dance aren't as readily pursued by newer dancers who are all about the fusion and the props etc.

In that case definitely DO IT. She'll kick your butt, in a good way.

My teacher stumbled upon Hadia by accident when she was in Canada and looking for some classes, and she said it was a revelation. There's still quite a bit of Hadia in our base work.

Yeah, she said she was pretty disenchanted with everything as it is today; she referenced 'mcbellydancers'. Though I feel saddened that the prefix 'mc', which has an amazing history in Scotland, has now been appropriated to describe cookie-cutterness, I do see what she means. She's also moving to Nova Scotia, where I used to live, and I think she's pursuing other interests. She says she'll still do her Bali trip though.

I just thought of another one to get snake arms moving. It is just a start idea to get elbows moving. It might be good to consider them as introduced in beginners and not for use until later though. Try getting them to lean into the snake arms so that you are moving whole upper body led by elbow, like a sideways undulation. You could do this during warm-up so there's no pressure.

Wonderfull!!!

Hadia is VERY grumpy and impatient. when we couldn't do what she wanted, she told us off and said we didn't follow. if you don't take anything she says personally it's VERY interesting to attend her workshop. she completely trashed ATS even tho there was an ATS teacher present. she said veil dance was american and wings were las vegas. she dismissed many many many things however she really knows her stuff. very knowledgeable. and entertaining. and she can really teacher. she explained every movement very clearly and make it very simple to understand. i used her way of teacher undulation and shimmy to my colleague who has never danced and she could do it within 5 mins (of course not perfectly but she totally understood the movement). when i get a chance i'll go to her workshop again.

Originally Posted by wingaki

Hadia is VERY grumpy and impatient.

This is really not called for.

I have trained with Hadia a lot and know her well, and while she is not the type of teacher to feed your ego for the sake of gaining popularity, she KNOWS her stuff. What she said regarding veil and wings is true; she is saddened and frustrated by where MED has gone. Let's face it - the norm is more about fusion and pops and locks these days. Where has the fluid and passionate dance of the Middle East gone? I'm not saying I'm against other styles of belly dance, but it would be soooo nice to see more of the dance as recognized and appreciated from where it originated.

There's something wrong when workshops with the Superstars sell out, and artists like Sahra, Hadia, Cassandra, Shareen, Denise Enan, etc struggle. Nothing against the talented ladies of the BDSS, but in my humble opinion - they are not anywhere near the same caliber. If we want to keep these amazing artists in business, we have to start supporting them more.

Hadia is NOT easy on you. You can't dance to impress her. She will call you on every little thing you do wrong and you'd best go into her class prepared to accept it, USE it and come out of it a better dancer. Listen to her... APPLY what she says and I promise you will.

As for getting annoyed and impatient with students not getting it? She is very touchy about students ignoring her instructions - I've seen it a million times. After seeing students not getting it she says "okay, stop - put your hands on your body, slow down and do it this way" proceeding to break down every little millimeter of movement. Yet, soooooo often students ignore her and continue doing the move at full speed, wrong despite what she is saying. Like she's not even in the room! It's like they think they are above what she's saying. That she's not talking to them or that they're doing it right. Why waste everyone's time if you already know how to do it?

I'm not saying any teacher is warranted to fly off the handle at anyone for any reason, or to speak ill of other teachers, but let's face it - we're not all perfect. Hadia speaks from the heart without thinking sometimes, but that does not for one moment discredit what she has to teach. If you LISTEN and apply what she says in class, don't interrupt and demonstrate that you are a hard worker and respect what she is teaching - you will have no problems.

I can't believe the number of people who will walk into a class with a master instructor with over inflated egos and blatantly disrespect the teacher by questioning them with comments like "Oh, but Jane Doe said to do it this way". It just seems pointless to take the class at all if you know it all.

Anyhow, I don't mean this directed all at you Wingaki, but I've seen a lot of things said about Hadia that upset me. She has been an INCREDIBLE inspiration to me, incredibly generous, respectful and the largest factor in making me who I am as a dancer today. I'll take what she's taught me and continue to work on it for years.

I for one, and beyond disheartened that she is taking an early retirement. But I don't blame her, to be honest.

She's moving to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and redirecting her efforts to massage therapy. What a beautiful change of pace from the politics of dance... I really wish we would all just be nice to one another.

There's something wrong when workshops with the Superstars sell out, and artists like Sahra, Hadia, Cassandra, Shareen, Denise Enan, etc struggle.

Word. On the one hand, it's the market and the dance "progressing", but on the other hand... these people aren't fuddy duddy old grandmas you know, they have mad skills and they can wipe the floor with many of today's stars, actually. I wish people weren't so quick to leap at everything "fusion" or "cool" instead of this stuff that is, you know, belly dance.

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Word. On the one hand, it's the market and the dance "progressing", but on the other hand... these people aren't fuddy duddy old grandmas you know, they have mad skills and they can wipe the floor with many of today's stars, actually. I wish people weren't so quick to leap at everything "fusion" or "cool" instead of this stuff that is, you know, belly dance.

I second what Adishakti and Zumarrad are saying. It's depressing that so many people are drawn by flash rather than substance.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled snake arm thread.

Nisaa